Handling Objects in Natural History Collections

Terrall, Mary

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-44379-3_2

Mary Terrall⁵

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and the Cultures of Print ((PERCP))

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Abstract

This essay makes the manipulation of objects in natural history collections a crucial part of scientific practice. It investigates the scientific uses and meanings of cabinets of naturalia using a few objects and a few collectors from the wide spectrum of natural history collecting in eighteenth-century France, looking especially at how objects were handled. How did the objects in collections enter into research agendas? They became the raw material for a variety of experimental and observational work, often pursued in the same space where objects were mounted, arranged, preserved and displayed.

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Notes

1.
Bruce Chatwin, Utz (New York: Viking Penguin, 1988), 20.
2.
Chatwin, whose first career was as an expert for the British auction house Sotheby’s, modeled his fictional character Utz on a Czech collector he met in Prague in the 1960s. The porcelain obsession of both collectors, fictional and historical, echoes the acquisitive desires of their eighteenth-century predecessors. For the layered meanings attached to collections across time and generations, see also Edmund de Waal, The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family’s Century of Art and Loss (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2010).
3.
The literature on collections in the early modern period has become too large to inventory comprehensively. In addition to works cited later, see Krzysztof Pomian, Collectors and Curiosities: Paris and Venice, 1500–1800, trans. Elizabeth Wiles-Portier (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990).
4.
On shell collections, see Bettina Dietz, “Mobile Objects: The Space of Shells in Eighteenth-Century France,” British Journal for the History of Science 39 (2006): 363–382; E.C. Spary, “Scientific Symmetries,” History of Science 42 (2004), 1–46. On minerals, Jonathan Simon, “Taste, Order, and Aesthetics in Eighteenth-Century Mineral Collections,” in From Public to Private: Natural Collections and Museums, ed. Marco Beretta (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications, 2005), 97–112.
5.
Daniela Bleichmar, “Learning to Look: Visual Expertise Across Art and Science in Eighteenth-Century France,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 46 (2012), 85–111.
6.
D’Argenville wrote an essay on how to arrange a natural history collection, first published in Mercure de France (1727), reprinted in Antoine Dézallier d’Argenville, Histoire naturelle éclaircie dans deux de ses parties principales, la lithologie et la conchyliologie (Paris,1742), 192–7. The book went through three editions, each with slightly different components.
7.
Daniel Margocsy, Commercial Visions: Science, Trade and Visual Culture in the Dutch Golden Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 64.
8.
A similar point about the mutability of collections is made by E.C. Spary, “Pierre Pomet’s Parisian Cabinet: Revisiting the Invisible and the Visible in Early Modern Collections,” in From Public to Private: Natural Collections and Museums, ed. Marco Beretta (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications, 2005), on 78. “We might … represent the early modern cabinet as a constant flux, with specimens shifting to accommodate new acquisitions or to compensate for old ones, a choreography of hands moving to bring together, describe, examine, preserve, mount, and of eyes moving between and among specimens and texts.”
9.
Dietz, “Mobile Objects,” 365.
10.
On the museum as a place for experiment and conversation in the Renaissance, see Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), esp. Chap. 6.
11.
On the apothecary business, social position, and growing wealth of three generations of the Geoffroy family, see David Sturdy, Science and Social Status: The Members of the Académie des Sciences, 1666–1750 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1995), 324–42. At Claude-Joseph’s death in 1752, the contents of the pharmacy, including the droguier, were valued at 21,000 livres. Sturdy, 326.
12.
Sturdy, Science and Social Status, 337–8.
13.
D’Argenville, Histoire naturelle éclaircie, 208. The merchant Gersaint also mentioned Geoffroy’s collection in his list, noticing especially the minerals, fossils, metals, and shells: Edme Gersaint, Catalogue raisonné de coquilles, insectes, plantes marines, et autres curiosités naturelles (Paris, 1736), 31.
14.
On the meaning and contents of a droguier, see Spary, “Pierre Pomet’s Parisian Cabinet.”
15.
The art collection was started by his father, Mathieu-François, but vastly expanded by Claude-Joseph. Sturdy, Science and Social Status, 327. Some of the porcelain would not have been out of place in Utz’s collection in Prague: C.-J. Geoffroy owned a mantel clock decorated with flowers and figures of Saxon porcelain; two candlesticks in the same style; and “two seated figures, also of Saxon porcelain, representing a sailor and a lacemaker.” Catalogue raisonné des minéraux, coquilles, et autres curiosités naturelles contenues dans le cabinet de feu M. Geoffroy de l’Académie royale des sciences (Paris, 1753), 92.
16.
C.-J. Geoffroy, “Différens moyens d’enflammer, non-seulement les huiles essentielles, mais même les baumes naturels, par les esprits acides,” Mémoires de l’Académie royale des sciences (Paris, 1726), 95–105; the presentation was also reported in the Mercure de France, June 1726, 1371–3.
17.
D’Argenville, Histoire naturelle éclaircie, 207. He also mentioned the series of sigillated earths, another class of objects with medical and magical associations; these do not appear in the auction catalogue of Geoffroy’s collection, so they must have been sold separately, perhaps with the droguier.
18.
Bezoars were adopted in Europe from Arabic medicine; they were also used in China. In addition to its classic use as an antidote, bezoar was used in remedies for vertigo, epilepsy, palpitations of the heart, jaundice, colic, and “so many other illnesses that it will be no doubt quite accurate to say that it is a kind of panacea, or a universal remedy…” The stones continued to be valuable commodities, although this article noted that many doctors no longer prescribed the use of bezoar. “Bezoard,” in Jacques Savary des Bruslons and Philemon-Louis Savary, Dictionnaire universel de commerce, d’histoire naturelle, et des arts et métiers, 3 vols. (Geneva, 1742), 1:435–38, quotation on 436.
19.
These are mentioned in the catalogue of Pedro Davila’s collection, with a note that they had been bought at the Geoffroy sale. Catalogue systématique et raisonné des curiosités de la nature et de l’art, qui composent le cabinet de M. Davila, 2 vols. (Paris: Briasson, 1767), 1:501–2. Rhinoceros stones were also collected by Hans Sloane; see Sloane, “A Letter from Sir Hans Sloane … containing accounts of the pretended serpent-stone … and the Rhinoceros Bezoar, Together with the Figure of a Rhinoceros with a Double Horn,” Philosophical Transactions 46 (1749–1750), 118–125.
20.
See, e.g. L.D. Arnault de Nobleville and François Salerne, Suite de la matière medicale de M. Geoffroy, 7 vols. (Paris, 1757), 4: 319–24, for uses of different kinds of bezoars.
21.
C.-J. Geoffroy, “Observations sur le bezoard, et sur les autres matières qui en approchent,” Mémoires de l’Académie royale des sciences (Paris, 1710), 235–242, on 235.
22.
Ibid., 236.
23.
Ibid., 237.
24.
Ibid., 240–1.
25.
C.-J. Geoffroy, “Suite des observations sur les bezoards,” Mémoires de l’Académie royale des sciences (Paris, 1712), 199–208, acacia seeds on 200–1.
26.
Catalogue raisonné des minéraux, coquilles, et autres curiosités naturelles contenues dans le cabinet de feu M. Geoffroy de l’Académie royale des sciences (Paris, 1753), 36.
27.
Spary, “Pierre Pomet’s Parisian Cabinet.” Pomet’s Histoire des drogues was first published in 1694, with a second edition in 1695; several others followed, including translations in German and English, but these came out well after Geoffroy’s papers on bezoars.
28.
Geoffroy, “Suite des observations,” 202.
29.
This arrangement is mentioned in Grandjean de Fouchy, “Eloge de M. Geoffroy,” HAS 1752, 163. On the will and inventory of the estate, see Sturdy, Science and Social Status, 334–9.
30.
Grandjean de Fouchy, “Eloge de M. Geoffroy,” Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences 1752, 153–164. See also “Avertissement,” in Catalogue raisonné des minéraux .... (Paris, 1753). According to the catalogue, the large droguier had been sold previously, as part of the apothecary business (v).
31.
Catalogue raisonné … M. Geoffroy, 79. Repeated in J.-B.-L. Romé de Lisle, Catalogue systématique et raisonné des curiosités de la nature et de l’art, qui composent le cabinet de M. Davila, 3 vols. (Paris: Briasson, 1767), 1: 505.
32.
Catalogue raisonné … M. Geoffroy, 79.
33.
Ibid., 79–81. On porcupine bezoars, and especially two eighteenth-century specimens in the collection of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum, see Christopher J. Duffin, “Porcupine Stones,” Pharmaceutical Historian 43 (2013): 13–22.
34.
Davila claimed to have bought Geoffroy’s whole set of bezoars. Romé de Lisle, Catalogue systématique et raisonné … M. Davila, 1:505. On Davila, a native of Guayaquil, and his collection, see Juan Pimentel, “Across Nations and Ages: The Creole Collector and the Many Lives of the Megatherium,” in The Brokered World: Go-Betweens and Global Intelligence, 1770–1820, ed. Simon Schaffer, et al. (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications, 2009), 321–54.
35.
For an overview of Guettard’s life, work, and character, see Condorcet, “Eloge de M. Guettard,” in Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences (Paris, 1786), 47–62.
36.
On Réaumur’s household as the training ground for young naturalists and future academicians, see Mary Terrall, “Masculine Knowledge, the Public Good, and the Scientific Household of Réaumur,” Osiris 30 (2015), 182–201. On the collection, Terrall, Catching Nature in the Act: Réaumur and the Practice of Natural History in the Eighteenth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2014), Chap. 6.
37.
R.A. F. de Réaumur, “Moyens d’empêcher l’évaporation des liquides spiritueuses, dans lesquelles on veut conserver des productions de la nature de différens genres,” Mémoires de l’Académie royale des sciences 1746, 483–538.
38.
On Guettard’s experiments on the regeneration of sea stars, see Terrall, Catching Nature, 124–5. Some of his rough sketches survive in Guettard to Réaumur, 12 July 1745, Archives de l’Académie des Sciences (Paris), dossier Guettard.
39.
Réaumur to Louis Bourguet, 29 July 1741, Bibliothèque publique et universitaire, Neufchâtel, Ms. 1278.
40.
Guettard’s draft inventory of Réaumur’s collection in Bibliothèque centrale du Muséum d’histoire naturelle (Paris), Ms. 1929 (iii).
41.
J.E. Guettard, “Mémoire sur les nids des oiseaux,” Nouvelle collection de mémoires sur différentes parties intéressantes des sciences et arts, 3 vols. (Paris: Lamy, 1786), 1: 324–418. This paper was read to the academy in the 1760s, but not printed in the journal.
42.
On the invitation to join the duke at the Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève, see Guettard, “La collection des corps marins fossiles …,” (autograph ms.), Bibliothèque centrale du Muséum d’histoire naturelle (Paris), Ms. 323, f. 89. Condorcet mentions their shared religious views, “Eloge de M. Guettard,” 57.
43.
Condorcet, “Eloge de M. Guettard,” 57.
44.
See, for example, Guettard, “Mémoire sur plusieurs morceaux d’histoire naturelle, tirés du cabinet de S.A.S. M. le duc d’Orléans,” Mémoires de l’Académie royale des sciences 1753, 369–400.
45.
Guettard, Nouvelle collection de mémoires, 1786, vol. 3, 413.
46.
Condorcet called this style of mineralogy “geographie naturelle” by analogy to histoire naturelle. Condorcet, “Eloge de M. Guettard,” 53.
47.
Map of the route to and from Poland, with notations of characteristic rock formations in Guettard, “Observations minéralogiques faites en France et en Allemagne: Seconde partie,” Mémoires de l’Académie royale des sciences 1763, following p. 228.
48.
Rochechouart to Guettard, 8 September 1759, Bibliothèque municipale de Clermont-Ferrand, Ms. 339, f. 74–5.
49.
“Extrait d’une lettre écrite par M. Guettard à Mad. du Boisjourdain au sujet du cabinet de Madame la comtesse de Rochechouart,” 4 July 1760 (from Warsaw). Rochechouart papers, Bibliothèque municipale de Bourg-en-Bresse, Ms. E. 409.
50.
Guettard, “Observations minéralogiques faites en France et en Allemagne: Première partie,” Mémoires de l’Académie royale des sciences 1763, 144.
51.
Ibid., 143.
52.
Ibid., 143–44; he described the same fossil to Mme du Boisjourdain as one of the most remarkable pieces in the Agey cabinet.
53.
For the pine cone, see Guettard, “Observations minéralogiques: seconde partie,” 220–221. The drawing was made by Moll’s son and given to Guettard during his visit, with Moll’s detailed description of it.
54.
Guettard, Nouvelle collection de mémoires, 3 vols. (Paris, 1786), 1: 146.

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Department of History, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Mary Terrall

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University of California Presidential Chair University of California, Riverside, Riverside, USA
Adriana Craciun
Professor of History and Philosophy of Science University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Simon Schaffer

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Terrall, M. (2016). Handling Objects in Natural History Collections. In: Craciun, A., Schaffer, S. (eds) The Material Cultures of Enlightenment Arts and Sciences. Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and the Cultures of Print. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-44379-3_2

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-44379-3_2
Published: 25 August 2016
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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Online ISBN: 978-1-137-44379-3
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